The trial is still two months away, but the attacks between lawyers are well underway in the Whitey Bulger case.

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The latest shot comes from the prosecution, which seeks to take Bulger's attorneys to task for asking a judge to vacate rulings made on immunity by now recused U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns.

Bulger filed papers last month asking Judge Denise J. Capser to reconsider a Stearns decision, which barred him from arguing to jurors that prosecutor Jeremiah O'Sullivan had long ago granted him immunity to commit all of the crimes for which he is under indictment.

In a 15-page April 8 memorandum that referred to the defense as "nothing more than a game of legal ‘whack-a-mole,'" prosecutor Zachary R. Hafer asks Casper to put an end to the argument once and for all by finding as a matter of law that Bulger does not have any type of immunity.

"Rather than provide any detail regarding when he purportedly made a deal with Jeremiah O'Sullivan, rather than cite to a single case in which the issue of immunity has been decided by a jury (it never has), rather than point to any aspect of Judge Stearns's immunity opinion that was legally incorrect, and rather than explain how someone who contends he was not an informant was nevertheless ‘immunized,'

On top of that, Hafer also accuses defense attorneys J.W. Carney Jr. and Hank Brennan of breaking the rules when it comes to publicly commenting on the case to the media.

Hafer writes that the defense clearly and knowingly has violated Local Rule 83.2A by strategically using press conferences "to comment on witness credibility, offer opinion on the case's merits and otherwise attempt to taint the jury pool by claiming outside the courtroom that their client is somehow ‘magically' immune from prosecution."

The prosecution has made similar complaints before but has not received much of a response from the court.

It is doubtful this one will either, but it certainly is interesting to see how both sides are readying themselves for a June trial date that appears more and more likely to proceed as scheduled.

With the immunity papers now on file, the ball is in Casper's court to either grant the parties a hearing on the issue or make a decision based on the written submissions.